Eleven Things Alignment Got Right

[Garthanos]

Your complaint seems to be that alignment alone can't tell you everything about someone, to which I reply "Well, no, it's not supposed to."

No the complaint is more complex than that by using rusty old generalized cliches it encourages less thinking in the players not more. And since those scales may not be very significant to your character even it takes attention away from something which might be important.... A character could be fanatic about telling the truth... and vicious about killing enemies... and greedy as hell... but love babies and having sex with strangers and think protecting others is the most important thing of all.

The pendragon game had traits that were like religious virtues/sins ... you could use that as the basis for a question or 2 to get players thinking about the natures of there characters. Name 2 sins your character finds most tempting and 2 virtues you find most significant.

 

[Celebrim]

Sorry I thought it patently obvious the alignment system is 2 word descriptors pre-canned obviously by definition.
Yup the boring part was my opine about the above pre-canned descriptors... sacred cows can be counter productive and this is one.
(umm who needs evidence to support an opinion).

Ummm.. where to begin. Ever wrote an essay? Generally, when you write an essay you begin with an opinion, called a 'thesis statement'. Then you provide supporting evidence for your opinion to persuade others of its truthfulness. Now, it certainly could be the case that some things are self-evident, but as long as we are talking about things that are 'obvious by definition', I think I should point out that quite a few people don't agree with you. And if alot of people don't agree with you, then I think by definition its not 'obvious'.

The point seemed to be that it is possible to make generalized uninformative answers in such away that it is no more than a rephrased echo of alignment.

No, quite the contrary. The point was that generalized answers like, "I wouldn't break the law." or "I wouldn't do anything immoral." are actually very informative and very realistic.

If you were to talk to a salesperson, and ask them, "How far would you go to make a sale?", probably some of the very first answers you'd get would be, "I wouldn't do anything illegal.", or "I wouldn't do anything immoral." Despite there terseness, these would be tremendously informative answers. We could certainly tease out further information with more and more questions, but I suspect that a large number of those answers would only tell us things we already knew from the generalization, "I wouldn't lie.", "I wouldn't steal.", etc. It would only be the unusual departures from the more encompassing statements that would be worthy of comment.

People tend to get more specific "I would even torture if I had to" "I wouldnt lie" "I wouldnt steal" or include phrase that indicate they are starting to think about it. "I might if " etc... etc and it inspires them to think more about the character.

I tend to find that most of the time you can just wait on these things until they actually come up. After all, "I would even toture if I had to" leads itself to almost infinite recursion as we attempt to figure out what they consider to be torture and what sorts of torture they'd consider acceptable. There is no sense addressing this before the fact, and its far more interesting to present the player with this ethical problem in game rather than out of game.

 

[Garthanos]

And if alot of people don't agree with you, then I think by definition its not 'obvious'.

The allignments are pre-canned... are you actually arguing that isnt obvious?

I considered it obvious they were "precanned" NOT obvious themselves. Communication failure I think

And my opinion that they are boring is certainly just an opinion something I see no need to prove or disprove... my son finds the idea of measuring people on a two scale axis as interesting...

"I wouldn't do anything immoral."'

uselessly vague answer study other cultures or even the american culture a little and that is so vague as to be unusable.

The "law" tends to at least be relatively well defined in the real world at least start defining it for your fantasy world so that answer gets a measure of usefulness.....

And the real life salesmans answers can tell you more by the tone of there voice than the answer he gives ...

There is no sense addressing this before the fact, and its far more interesting to present the player with this ethical problem in game rather than out of game.

1) The question itself gets them thinking in terms of the choices they will make. (and sets a tone that ethics and implications might actually enter the game).
2) relatively general nature of the question allows them to take it various different ways.
3) it might force me to elaborate on something to allow them to hang there hat on.... in your "He wouldnt disobey the law"...answer It gives me a clue that we need to elaborate on the laws of this fantasyverse.(enumerate them or ask the player to help, this latter is significant as the player may be defining the laws of his characters homeland) we then discuss what he thinks about the laws of the neighboring culture...The players answer to a general question has helped the game far more than categorizing the character.

 

[Dice4Hire]

The problem I saw with alignment is they attempted to apply it to everyone in the world, when most should have been more or less nautral, with the extreme alignments applied to outsiders, major NPCs, player characters and the gods. As alignment was tied into the spells and some class abilities, it needed to exist, and overall the nine alignments worked as vague generalizations, or even predictions of behavior.

But as specific rules for behavior or attitudes, or even worse as applied to real-world personas, it is not working.

 

[MrGrenadine]

The problem I saw with alignment is they attempted to apply it to everyone in the world, when most should have been more or less nautral, with the extreme alignments applied to outsiders, major NPCs, player characters and the gods. As alignment was tied into the spells and some class abilities, it needed to exist, and overall the nine alignments worked as vague generalizations, or even predictions of behavior.

I would agree with this, however...

But as specific rules for behavior or attitudes, or even worse as applied to real-world personas, it is not working.

The alignment system isn't really meant for either of these things--which may have been your point, though I'm not sure. In any case, alignment is not so much a set of rules as it is a short-hand description of the characters...well, character, based on his or her decisions and actions. And of course it breaks down when applied to the real world. It is a game, after all.

 

[Andor]

The trouble with the alignment system is that it is a generic system applied to a sandbox game where almost anything is possible.

If you were designing an alignment system for a specific world and time then you can simply use the relevant scales of conflict. For example if you wanted an alignment system for Earthdawn you might have a scale that tracked the characters opinions on Horrors, the Thera/Throal conflict, and attitude towards mundane characters ([soak the for all they are worth] - [help them selflessly]).

But D&D encompasses everything from Barsive, to Planescape, to Dragonlance, to Tekumel, to DarkSun. Trying to compare the morals of a Darksun Halfling to a Dragonlance Gully Dwarf is like comparing apples to sea urchins. So a vague alignment system is used, and thus the endless alignment debates rage on.

 

[Afrodyte]

If you were designing an alignment system for a specific world and time then you can simply use the relevant scales of conflict.

Are you familiar with Fading Suns? It uses similar mechanics for a person's orientation toward the world - a far more useful rubric than D&D alignment precisely because it's specific and tailored toward the themes explored in the setting.

No the complaint is more complex than that by using rusty old generalized cliches it encourages less thinking in the players not more. And since those scales may not be very significant to your character even it takes attention away from something which might be important

Precisely. Things like character-specific motivations. I find it far more interesting to explore how far characters are willing to go to get what they need or want. Granted, alignment is a simple way to describe that, but I'd rather figure that out during play.

 

[Garthanos]

But D&D encompasses everything from Barsive, to Planescape, to Dragonlance, to Tekumel, to DarkSun. Trying to compare the morals of a Darksun Halfling to a Dragonlance Gully Dwarf is like comparing apples to sea urchins. So a vague alignment system is used, and thus the endless alignment debates rage on.

Better be willing to write an essay proving there vagueness... can we assume the plethora of debates are actual evidence of there vagueness ?
It could also mean that humans feel they are actual truly fundamental and so must be explored and debated to be appreciated.